Obama to visit Gulf, defends oil spill response

President Obama is expected to visit Louisiana on Friday to observe cleanup efforts and speak to local officials about capping the undersea oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.His visit will be the second to the region since the spill occurred on April 20. His visit also comes amid criticism that his administration has been slow in its response to the environmental disaster."I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down," Obama said Thursday at a White House news conference. "That doesn't mean it's going to be easy. That doesn't' mean it's going to happen right away or the way I'd like it to happen. That doesn't mean we aren't going to make mistakes."
Obama insisted that the federal government was fully engaged, adding "and I'm fully engaged."
The president even said his 11-year-old daughter, Malia, weighed in on Thursday.
"You know, when I woke up this morning and I'm shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, 'Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?'" he said.
New federal estimates Thursday determined the spill is likely the largest in U.S. history, with oil already coating parts of the Louisiana coast and the eventual impacts still unclear.BP announced Thursday that it had suspended its "top-kill" procedure for more than 16 hours before it was restarted later that afternoon.
The "top kill" involves pumping heavy drilling fluid into the head of the leaking well at the sea floor. The manufactured fluid, known as drilling mud, is normally used as a lubricant and counterweight in drilling operations. Officials hope the drilling mud will stop the flow of oil. Cement then would be pumped in to seal the well."When we did the initial pumping (Wednesday), we clearly impacted the flow of the well. We then stopped to monitor the well," said Doug Suttles, the company's chief operating officer. "Based on that, we restarted again. We didn't think we were making enough progress after we restarted, so we stopped again."
"I probably should apologize to folks that we haven't been giving more data on that," Suttles said when asked why it took so long for BP to announce it had suspended the top kill. "It was nothing more than we are so focused on the operation itself."
The revelation that the procedure had gone on a break angered local officials and observers. Neither President Obama or Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is leading the government's response to the oil spill, appeared to be aware of the break when they addressed reporters at separate news conferences Thursday.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who has been extremely critical of the federal response to the spill, said the delay in information from BP was "par for the course."
"We've been dealing with this from day one, and the information has not flowed on anything," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
A White House official told CNN that people inside the White House knew about the temporary delay in the "top kill," but it wasn't clear if Obama was aware of it.
The official said the president wouldn't micromanage every decision made by BP and government officials working the disaster site. The White House didn't announce the break because it didn't seem to be a major issue -- the operation had continued throughout the delay and the pumping of the liquid resumed later in the afternoon, the official said.
"It would have been a bigger deal if the entire operation stopped -- and they want to make that distinction," CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry reported.
BP officials say the procedure could take another 24 to 48 hours to complete, though whether the top kill will successfully stop the flow of oil is uncertain.
The spill claimed a job in Washington on Thursday as Elizabeth Birnbaum stepped down as head of US Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling. However, two Obama administration sources told CNN that she was fired.